Katie's Blog

So this week I was a productive Katie. I was invited by one of my thesis committee members (flashbacks!!!) to be a part of her panel on gender and literature as part of Festiba. I was honored to join in, and said "of course! yes! I would love to!" and put it on the back burner of my ADD brain. I figured I would just kind of run the same presentation as I did at AWP, no biggie. But as the days ran closer, I started to feel -- well, that I was missing out on an opportunity to evaluate my own poetics. The panel was, after all, a research panel, and... I should probably do some actual research, yeah? And since I defended my thesis about a year ago now, my views on poetry have changed, matured, ripened (I like to think, anyway). And so this past weekend, I embarked on a reading journey through criticism. No, it wasn't nearly as boring as it sounds. I came to a few personal conclusions that I touched on in my presentation. Why don't I share them with you? 1. Poeti...

So I know my blog is mostly about poetry, but... Tomorrow happens to be the release date for A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage , a fantastic novel by the even more fantastic Marly Youmans . As I was reading the first chapter (which, yes, if you click that nice little link you'll get to read it, too!) I found that there was, indeed, poetry hidden within the prose. To be expected, though. Marly's a talented poet, too! How crafty... the first chapter ends at a rather suspenseful moment. Which means only one thing... I'm buying the book X-D I've known Marly for about a year now; we met at West Chester last summer. She's an author, poet, blogger, and mom extraordinaire . How does one woman do it all? I'm honestly not sure and I'm still trying to figure that out for myself... but she must have some sort of super power, that's all I'm going to say.. Anyway, her latest book comes out tomorrow, so check it out! Here's some more inform...

That was on Friday. We, of course, had a poetry reading to celebrate! I can't believe it's already been a year. I love going to the poetry readings at Carinos :) In fact, they're my favorite of all. Never fails to draw a good crowd. Here are a few pictures from the evening. The highlight was seeing the Texas Poet Laureate Jan Seale in action again, in addition to other talented artists including Brian Carr (author of Short Bus) and Xavier Garza (author of... too many to name!). Ok! Edward, general manager of Carinos, even had a fancy dancy banner printed for us. Gosh he's wonderful. From left, that's Alan Oak, Jan Seale, and Edward Vidaurre.   Here I am, stressin' over my poems! I'm going through this phase where I try to memorize my poems and recite them, Dana Gioia style. Ok, he's the master, not me. But whatever, a girl can try, yeah? Oh, maybe not after one too many peach bellinis though... which happened to be the case this particular eve X-D...

Ok so maybe I haven't been the best of blogger lately, and maybe I apologize. But I've been having a rush of poems! It feels fantastic X-D Ok, more like a little maddening, but also fantastic. I've written 3 poems in the past 5 days, 3 POEMS. That's really fast for me... I'm a pokey poet in general. Ok, back to the AWP story... After stopping by the Crab Orchard Review table, I realized I had just a little bit of time before the ONE panel I was really looking forward to seeing. So I head on over to the Alice James Books table (which, is probably my favorite major press) to just meet the editors, and see what they've got forthcoming. I start fiddling through the books, and look up to see a familiar face. Huh? Do I know you? It was Stacy Gnall! No, I didn't know her, but gosh she looked familiar! And then, sitting in front of her was a stack of suspiciously familiar looking books... Heart First into the Forest . The book I reviewed for BOXCAR a few w...

Katie seriously needs to take a break from obsessively checking Duotrope's Digest. I mean, really. I'm getting all giddypants about a few journals that appear to be "holding" a few of my poems. Stop obsessing! Stop obsessing! So to take a little break from all this madness, why don't I tell you a little bit about my second day at AWP? I wake up in Chicago on Saturday morning. I'm up pretty early, mostly because I'm nervous for the panel I'm moderating. My nervousness wakes up BruBru, because we're... well, weird like that. So after getting ready, we head to the hotel's breakfast area and had a yummy start with tons of coffee (which probably didn't help to ease my giddiness) and conversation in an atrium. Que bueno! We head outside, and what do ya know -- it's snowing! I'm from South Texas; I'm easily amused. I stop to pose for a picture (and aren't you glad I did? lol). It's about ten in the morning when I a...

Phew! You will be happy to know I am back and alive after the whirlwind of AWP. I've been calling it a "whirlwind" since the moment I got there, because really, that's what it felt like! As you know, I'm a South Texas kind of girl. I'm used to life moving at a "South Texas Pace" which is very different from Chi-town... I had the crazy idea to book a flight that left as early in the morning as possible... 5am out of Brownsville. Yeah, that wasn't my brightest idea. But whatever, Bruno and I, truly zombified, made it to the airport and off we went. I arrived in blustery Chicago at about noon that Friday morning. Bruno likes to drive, so we rented a car to get around town. Gosh traffic is InSaNe! I'm not used to the hustle bustle. Anyway, I make it to the Hilton at around 2:30. I was all jitters and nerves checking in, looking for any familiar face. None. A sea of strangers! A sea of writers. Ah, not so bad, perhaps :-) I wander ar...